Growing
by 123me
Summary: "Lexie, I love you, but you have to grow up."  She should have known she'd have to elaborate on that.


**This came to me after the last episode, specifically just after Meredith told Lexie what she needed to hear. Don't get me wrong, I love Lexie, she's my favorite character, but she does act too quickly and did need to hear that.**

**It's just a short oneshote and I'm not really sure I've quite got it right, mainly because I don't think we've seen enough of big sister Meredith in the past few seasons, but I guess it could work as a missing moment, most of the stuff I write are moments I would like to have seen on the show anyway.**

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"_Lexie, I love you, but you have to grow up."_

The words echoed in her head as she stepped through the door, hearing the light conversation between her sister and brother-in-law coming from the confines of the living room.

She stepped forward, ensuring that she was within their line of vision before clearing her throat.

"Hey." Meredith gave a faint smile. "Is... um... dad okay?"

Lexie nodded. "He was discharged earlier tonight, they didn't tell you?"

"No." Meredith frowned. "I didn't ask before I left."

The brunette nodded, watching her sister carefully before deciding to address the words they had exchanged earlier. "You're wrong."

"No I'm not." Meredith insisted. "I'm right. You know I'm right."

Derek stood up hastily. "That's my cue to leave." He kissed his wife lightly. "Go easy on her, and don't be up all night."

"I don't need to grow up." Lexie denied, moving to sit across from her sister. "He needs to stop expecting me to accept everything."

"Are we talking about dad," Meredith began. "Or Mark?"

"Dad!" Lexie exclaimed, turning away from her sister, annoyed that she'd even gone there. She didn't want to accept that maybe her sister was right, maybe this was about more than their father. Sometimes she did regret turning to her sister at times like this "He can't just show up with some girlfriend that might as well be younger than me."

"He's happy." Meredith repeated her earlier words. "Let him be happy."

"She's bad news."

"You don't even know her."

Lexie frowned, knowing her older sister was right. "She'll hurt him, Mere, she'll leave him for someone more her own age and I'll be the one left to pick up the pieces."

"You have to give her a chance."

"That's basically what Jackson said." Lexie admitted. " I can't like her if I know she's going to hurt him. How the hell does that mean I need to grow up?"

"This isn't about you, Lex." Meredith pointed out. "You're thinking about what would make you happy, not about what makes dad happy."

"She's not good for him."

"Mark's never been good for you." Meredith smirked slightly. "I tried to keep him away from you. I wasn't thinking about you when I did that, I was thinking of the drama that could be avoided if I did keep you away from him." She paused. "I was right about that too, you know, but in the end I let you live your life, I grew up, now it's your turn."

Lexie frowned. "Why are you relating Mark to this?" She was trying not to show how the mere mention of him was affecting her. "What's he got to do with anything?"

"He's got everything to do with this." Meredith sighed, knowing her sister was trying to avoid the obvious. "You love him."

"He clearly doesn't love me." Lexie defied. "If he did he wouldn..."

"You know that's not true." Meredith interrupted. "You weren't together when he slept with Callie." She shot her sister a stern look as the younger woman attempted to speak. "You weren't together. That was by your choice, not his." She paused, noticing the faint glisten of tears in her sister's eyes. "Okay, so maybe he shouldn't have done it, but he did, and now he's doing the responsible thing and dealing with it. He's not running away."

"He is." Lexie claimed, feeling the stray tear fall down her cheek. "From me."

"No he's not." Meredith acknowledged. "You're running away from him. Again."

"You think I should go back." It wasn't a question.

"I think." Meredith acknowledged. "That you should suck it up, and talk to him."

"I can't." Lexie claimed. "He knew. He knew how I felt about this. He knew I wasn't ready. It's not the first time. I can't have a repeat of last time, I can't do it."

"Lex." Meredith moved to sit by her sister. "What happened last time? You never really explained why you left him, other than you couldn't be who he wanted you to be."

The tears continued to fall. "He forgot me. He started making all these plans about him and Sloan and the baby, and he didn't even ask me. He just expected me to go along with it."

"Okay." The blonde nodded. "That, that was wrong of him, he should have talked to you." She paused, making sure her sister was paying attention. "It works both ways though, you should have talked to him too. Which is my point." Lexie glanced up, unsure as to what, exactly, she was being told. "When something happens that you don't think you can cope with, you shut people out. You don't talk, you work yourself up to a point where you kind of overreact. I was the same a few years ago. Today when you saw dad with this girlfriend, you overreacted."

The brunette nodded in agreement. "I know."

"You overreacted by walking out on Mark too."

"No I didn't." Lexie murmured. "It doesn't matter whether we love eachother or not, we want different things. He's got what he wants now. He's got his baby. His family. If I stick around, it'll be just like the last time."

"You don't know that." Meredith pointed out. "I get that this isn't what you wanted to be dealing with right now. It's a difficult situation, but you're an adult, you need to act like one. Figure out what you want and take the good and the bad. You can't just be in something for the good. You won't know what's going to happen unless you try. Just because he forgot you, or whatever, last time, doesn't mean he will this time. He's grown up since then, he's shown us all that, it's about time you did too. You need to grow up, and accept the good, the bad and the unexpected. I'm not trying to make you feel bad, you just need to think about other people in these things too."

Lexie nodded, looking down as she felt her sister shift. "I'll apologise to dad properly." She hesitated. "And the girlfriend."

Meredith smiled faintly. "That's a start." She stood, knowing there wasn't much more she could say to her sister. "Who knew I could be so good at this stuff, huh?"

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**Not completely happy with it, but, Review?**


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